foolography

Before you use your Unleashed for the first time, it has to be paired with your GPS receiver. It comes with short instructions to start a quick automatic pairing routine, directly on the camera. The Unleashed remembers your GPS, and from then on always automatically connect to this GPS, until you rerun the pairing routine (in case you want to connect a different GPS receiver).

When you turn on your camera, the Unleashed immediately connects to your GPS. The GPS data is passed on to the camera, which saves it directly in every photo you take, even RAW photos. The Unleashed monitors camera activity in order to save power when it is not being used. After 2 minutes of inactivity it stops sending GPS data to the camera, allowing the meter to turn off (even on the D200 and D2 Series, which had no such feature). This saves a lot of power. For 15 minutes, the Unleashed keeps the connection to the GPS, so that the instant the camera is reactivated, the current position is sent to the camera. From the first photo on, the position is embedded in the metadata. After 15 minutes of inactivity, the Unleashed will drop the Bluetooth® connection, saving power for both the GPS and the Unleashed. It will however remember the last position for another 30 minutes, so that when you activate the camera again within those 30 minutes, it will instantly have a position, maximally 30 minutes old. Within seconds, it will reconnect with the GPS to update that position. This also works when you go indoors and the GPS signal is lost – you will still have the position just outside the building in your files. Whenever the GPS receiver is further away from the Unleashed (for example at the window while you’re shooting indoors), this feature bridges short Bluetooth® connection disruptions. Of course, these “old” positions are marked, easily identified and removed later, should this option not be wanted.

After 45 minutes of inactivity, the Unleashed goes into standby and uses so little power, that it would take 3 years and 9 months to drain a D300 Battery. In other words – it’s designed to stay on the camera at all times. It will not be in your way physically, nor will you have to worry about battery drain.

The Unleashed’s firmware can be upgraded by the user via Bluetooth®. Updates will be available on our website.
The next firmware update will come with a configuration software, which allows the users to change all the timeouts mentioned above to their likings. Of course it will also add other great new features, such as remote release via Bluetooth®.